Time flies fast on the women’s side. This is bad news for Norway. It is nine years ago now that the national team reached the final of the European Championships. It is longer than it sounds, because at that time, women’s football has had a growth that has taken decades on the men’s side. The big countries have taken over the Nordic countries. Norway’s catastrophic European Championship is not just about coach Martin Sjögren, but about a small nation that over time will struggle to keep up with the giants. Norway can no longer just play party football. They have to accept their role as underdog and outsider, and with that make it harder to break down. In fact, there is a similar team that has shown how this can be solved. And that is the Norwegian men’s national team. STARS: Where the women’s team is struggling, the men’s national team has become a team with a tight structure, which manages to utilize the capacity of the stars Martin Ødegaard and Erling Braut Haaland. Photo: Beate Oma Dahle / NTB Several parallels Both teams have a couple of high-class creative players, plus a striker who is so good that we have to pinch our arm. The men have Martin Ødegaard and Erling Braut Haaland. The ladies have Caroline Graham Hansen, Guro Reiten and Ada Hegerberg. PROFILE: Caroline Graham Hansen. Photo: VEGARD GRØTT / BILDBYRÅN These names are constantly drawn up on both sides when it comes to arguing what Norway should achieve. But we know what they can do. The key is the rest of the team. Here, Ståle Solbakken has welded the layer parts together with count, layer spirit and tight structure. The men can play good football, but they are first and foremost solid. As long as the defense is tight, they know that the geniuses ahead will create something. This is as created to beat supposedly better teams. The men now top their group in the National League with three victories in four matches. The ladies need a similar strategy. When the World Cup qualifiers continue in September, Norway must find a style that takes into account the distance up to the best. It has become big. We’ve seen that this summer. Shocked The foremost measure is England, who crushed Norway 8-0 in the group. Even the English team was shocked by the level difference. Is not Norway better? THE COACH: It’s blowing around national team manager Martin Sjögren after Norway’s European Championship exit. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB The answer must be that yes, that is it. This team should be able to reach a quarterfinal. The criticism against Sjögren is deserved, and it is difficult to remember many coaches who have been allowed to keep their jobs after a European Championship with zero points and zero goals, as the Swede did in 2017. At the same time, it is easy to forget how fast women’s football is advancing in countries like England . It is not just Norway that has stagnated. Many of the other nations have improved. Much better. Three big years Let’s look at the balance of power between England and Norway over the last three years. In 2019, they met in the World Cup, with Sjögren as coach. England won 3-0, but the numbers behind were not so bad for Norway. England won the shooting statistics 16-12. The ball possession was 50-50. When the teams met again in a friendly match in Bergen two months later, Norway won 2-1. Three years later, the gap has become huge. In the European Championships, England won the shooting statistics 26-3. They held the ball, with a clear 61 percent of possession. They decided it all after half an hour. Okay, England played at home and have got a brilliant coach in Sarina Wiegman. But Norway had Hegerberg, who was gone in 2019. If you want to find an explanation, you have to look at more things than the two teams and the coaches. One must take into account the changes in English women’s football as a whole. Half a million new players A lot has happened here. Already one year before the World Cup, in 2018, the English top league became 100 percent professional. All clubs had to give players contracts with at least 16 working hours a week, as well as run their own academies. In the following years, several large clubs invested in their women’s teams. Today, 11 of the 12 teams in the top series belong to clubs that have men’s teams in the Premier League. These earn billions a year and can pour resources into the teams. In addition, the top league has received sponsorship and TV agreements that have increased dramatically in value. Then you have the English Football Association. In 2017, they started a plan to increase the number of players, teams and gyms on the women’s side. Three years later, the number of teams had increased by 54 percent. The number of players, regardless of age and level, was up to 3.4 million. This was an increase of half a million in three years. The more popular women’s football becomes, the more of the country’s 56 million inhabitants will be mobilized as fans, coaches and players. For Norway, with 5.5 million inhabitants, it will not be easy to keep up. Progress in Southern Europe England is not alone. The Netherlands has become a great power, as Norway experienced with the 0-7 loss last year. France and Germany are established. And keep an eye on Southern Europe. Spain did not reach the World Cup until 2015 and is in the European Championships only for the fourth time. Still, they are among the favorites, even without two of their biggest stars, Alexia Putellas and Jenni Hermoso. They have 47 million inhabitants, raw football culture and two of the world’s biggest clubs in Barcelona and Real Madrid, both of which invest in their women’s teams. SPANISH STAR: Alexia Putellas won the Golden Ball in 2021. Photo: ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP Italy? They are further behind, but there the top division will be professional next season. Portugal reached its first tournament in 2017 and recently played evenly against the Netherlands in its group. Both Italy and Portugal beat Norway in the Algarve Cup earlier this year. And while it was gratifying that Norway’s U19 team reached the European Championship final this summer, it is far from that level to meet the A-teams to England and the Netherlands. Quality at all levels So it can be said that Norway has players on some of the world’s best teams. But as some have pointed out, several of them are struggling to get a permanent place, among them Julie Blakstad (Manchester City), Frida Maanum (Arsenal) and Ingrid Syrstad Engen (Barcelona). In Norway’s defense, Maren Mjelde has not started a league match for Chelsea since the injury. Against Austria she played with Blakstad, Tuva Hansen, Guro Bergsvand and goalkeeper Guro Pettersen. The latter three play in the Norwegian Toppserien. Although the Toppserien is growing, it is well behind the big leagues in Europe. There were no Norwegian teams in the Champions League last season. TOP SERIES: The top division in Norwegian women’s football is only ranked number 12 in Europe. Photo: Marit Hommedal / NTB In the European Football Association’s ranking of leagues, based on results in their tournaments over the past five years, Norway is in 12th place, behind Iceland and Kazakhstan. In comparison, England has top players at all levels. Even Austria has three players from the English league, plus six from the top three teams in Germany. Stars in the eyes Thus, it is easy to get stars in the eyes of names like Hegerberg, Hansen and Reiten, without taking into account that the rest of the team has to stick together. It gets especially bad when the organization is as weak as it has been in the European Championships. So Norway must adapt to this new world. It must be impossible for the national team to lose 8-0. The battles against the big ones must be even enough for the stars to decide them. Something has to happen, because it can not continue like this. It does not get any easier. And it can not get much worse. DOWN: PSG-Celin Bizet plays depressed after the loss to Austria. Photo: VEGARD GRØTT / BILDBYRÅN
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